The Calm Before the Storm — War and Peace

Between three and four o'clock Prince Andrew reaches Bagration at Grunth; Bonaparte's adjutant has not yet reached Murat, and the battle has not begun. The truce still holds. Rumors of peace mix with rumors of battle, and no one knows the wider map. Bagration welcomes him as a favourite adjutant, offers the rearguard or the fight, and says there will hardly be an engagement today. If he is a staff dandy sent for a medal, the rearguard will do; if he is brave, he will be of use here.

Andrew rides the line with a handsome duty officer who wears a diamond ring and cannot keep soldiers out of sutlers' tents. In one tent he meets Captain Tushin without boots, joking that marching is easier barefoot until the jest falls flat. Farther forward the camp grows orderly: men mend coats, sample porridge, and punish a thief while officers still cannot hold the rear.

At the picket line Russians and French stand close enough to talk. Dolokhov swears at a grenadier who insists Napoleon is Emperor; Sidorov jabbers nonsense French until both sides roar with laughter so healthy it seems they might unload the muskets and go home. The guns remain loaded. Andrew has seen panic in the baggage train and calm where bullets will land first.